Robotics

Back in May of last year I wrote that the pandemic would set the tone for a new autonomous food and grocery delivery paradigm. With a funding announcement and news of expansion from one of the dominant players in the space, that’s very much coming to pass.
Starship Technologies, which makes a six-wheel delivery robot and has innovated a novel adoption strategy targeting college campuses and other controlled environments, just announced $17M in new funding (bringing the company’s total funding to over $100M). Starship is also expanding its delivery services to two new campuses: UCLA and Bridgewater State University in Massachusetts. 
“Completing one million deliveries is a milestone that everyone at Starship is celebrating,” says Ahti Heinla, Co-founder and CEO of Starship Technologies. “We are delivering a fully commercial service operating 24-7 across five different countries now doing thousands of deliveries a day and millions of autonomous miles per year. This scale puts Starship on par with the biggest companies in the self-driving car market when it comes to miles travelled in the last year alone. We’re proud to be offering a crucial service that is now becoming part of everyday life for millions of people.”
The pandemic has created an opportunity across the delivery ecosystem as consumer demand shifts more rapidly than expected toward online orders. Autonomous delivery services, which use either autonomous mobile robots or self-driving vehicles to execute deliveries, have been shifting their sales pitch to meet the moment, emphasizing the benefits of contactless delivery and touting as-a-service options that extend delivery capabilities to mom & pops. 
Starship is probably the best known of the delivery robot developers. In addition to offering delivery services on college campuses, where regulatory requirements are easier to navigate than many municipalities, the company recently rolled out its robot food delivery service in Fairfax City, VA, touting the access it’s given residents to food and grocery delivery during the pandemic. The company has also offered free delivery for healthcare workers.
Meanwhile, Starship has aggressively expanded on college campuses, where it can strike deals with administrators to deploy its delivery services on behalf of on-campus dining options. The campuses can tout their cutting edge technology adoption while Starship gets a powerful testbed for its service and technology as it builds a regulatory case for wider rollout in cities around the world.
UCLA partnered with Starship to offer autonomous delivery from restaurants like Blaze Pizza, Bruin Buzz, Lu Valle, and Southern Lights. Bridgewater State University is  providing delivery from campus restaurants including Starbucks Cafe and Bears Den.

The additional funding comes at a time of increasing interest in the autonomous delivery industry. Contactless delivery has proved to be one of the most reliable ways to protect vulnerable populations and enable social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic, which is of particular importance on college campuses.
“Over the last few years there has been a growing interest for food deliveries on campus, and our new partnership with Starship Technologies has come at the perfect time,” says Cindy Bolton, Associated Students UCLA Director of Food Operations. “The new service is an excellent alternative to traditional delivery, especially as we continue to confront the challenges of COVID-19. By using delivery robots, ASUCLA Restaurants can serve more essential workers and students on the UCLA campus.”
The Starship service utilizes an iOS and Android app that enables users to choose food or drink items and then drop a pin where they want their delivery to be sent. An interactive map tracks the robot’s position, and once it arrives customers unlock a secure compartment via the app. 
It remains to be seen whether the Starship robots will pledge Greek or stay independent. More

As airlines reel from travel disruptions associated with the pandemic, electric aviation continues steadily gaining ground. Two enterprise announcements this month underscore the growing traction for electric aviation technology, including flying cars, which could bring new efficiencies to air travel for short-route flights.
Morgan Stanley estimates sustainable air mobility will be a $1.5 trillion by 2040.

The Points Guy

The first announcement comes from California-based Archer, a company that bills itself as building the world’s first all-electric airline around vertical takeoff and landing vehicles to move people throughout the world’s cities. Archer and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) have entered into a supply chain agreement to enable Archer to benefit from access to FCA’s low-cost supply logistics, as well as advanced composite material know-how and engineering experience.
That access is critical in Archer’s bid to manufacture high-volume, composite, electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft. According to the company, the all-electric aircraft will be capable of traveling distances of up to 60 miles at 150 mph.
“We’ve been hyper-focused on a customer-first approach to vehicle design and aircraft operations,” says Brett Adcock, Co-Founder & Co-CEO of Archer. “Now we are working with a seasoned, industry-leading automotive partner to leverage cost benefits and experience that will allow Archer to produce thousands of aircraft reliably and affordably every single year.”
Other players in the increasingly competitive space include Blade and Lilium.
Archer and FCA, the parent company of brands like Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, and Ram, have already teamed up on cockpit design elements. One stumbling block for startups in aviation – electric or otherwise – has always been access to a capital-efficient supply chain, the kind that give established durable goods manufacturers a competitive edge. Building such a supply chain is a decades-long process, and manufacturing composites at scale is difficult under the best circumstances. Through this collaboration, Archer and FCA will work together to significantly decrease the cost of production while leveraging FCA’s manufacturing know-how against Archer’s startup nimbleness.

“Electrification within the transportation sector, whether on roads or in the air is the future and with any new and rapidly developing technology, scale is important,” says Doug Ostermann, Vice President and Head of Global Business Development of FCA. “Our partnership with Archer has mutual benefits and will enable innovative, environmentally friendly transportation solutions to be brought to market at an accelerated pace.”
That’s certainly the case for electric aviation company MagniX, which is developing technology to turn traditional aircraft into electric vehicles. The Washington State-based company recently announced it’s consolidating operations at a new 40,000-square-foot building to aid its mission of all-electric aviation for planes carrying up to 40 passengers.
“In 2018, 75 percent of worldwide airline flights were 1,000 miles or less in range. With magniX’s new propulsion systems coupled with emerging battery capabilities, we see tremendous potential for electric aviation to transform this heavily trafficked ‘middle mile’ range,” Roei Ganzarski, CEO of magniX, told us in 2019.
MagniX will first retrofit small turbine-engine airplanes with its electric motors. The Pacific Northwest, home to aviation giant Boeing, has long been a hub of aviation innovation. Vancouver-based Harbour Air, North America’s largest seaplane airline, is working with MagniX on an all-electric fleet, a move that’s being watched a bellwether in the sector.
The news from Archer and MagniX is indicative of the activity in electric aviation development, and this technology is likely to reach commercialization well within the coming decade. More

The FAA has authorized its first-ever approval to a company for use of automated drones without human operators on site. The move comes as the agency is putting new rules in place to evolve regulation of the broader enterprise drone paradigm in the U.S., which has lagged behind other developed nations in adopting industry-friendly commercial drone guidelines.
Boston-based American Robotics, a developer of automated drone systems specializing in rugged environments, received the FAA approval last week, marking a first for the federal agency.
Read also: Stunning Maps Visualize Drone Laws Around the World
“Decades worth of promise and projection are finally coming to fruition,” says Reese Mozer, CEO and co-founder of American Robotics. “We are proud to be the first company to meet the FAA’s comprehensive safety requirements, which had previously restricted the viability of drone use in the commercial sector.”
Over the last few years, UAV firms have worked closely with the FAA to set safety parameters and demonstrate the working state of drone technology. American Robotics’ approval comes after a four-year testing program around its Scout line of UAV products. During recent tests the company put its UAV through up to ten automated missions per day.
At the end of 2020, the FAA announced final rules for Unmanned Aircraft (UA) requiring Remote Identification (Remote ID) of drones and also allowing operators of small drones to fly over people and at night under certain conditions. The rules were a step toward loosening tight restrictions on commercial drone use, although some in the sector took issue with the FAA’s decision on tracking, citing privacy reasons. Nevertheless, it’s clear the FAA is coming to terms with a big future for commercial drones. 
“The new rules make way for the further integration of drones into our airspace by addressing safety and security concerns,” said FAA Administrator Steve Dickson of the December rulemaking decision. “They get us closer to the day when we will more routinely see drone operations such as the delivery of packages.”

Autonomy and the ability to fly without an operator could have huge repercussions for drone adoption in a variety of industries. An automated drone workflow for data capture applications in sectors like agriculture and environmental sciences, for example, opens up a huge low-cost data collection opportunity for an array of end users. It’s not far-fetched to envision mid- and even small-sized farmers using an automated drone to monitor soil and crop health in real time, for example, something that would be prohibitive with current FAA restrictions.
“Our interest in American Robotics’ technology started with the desire to have a drone imagery solution that was reliable, scalable, and executed with minimal human resources,” explains Lance Ruppert, Director of Agronomy Marketing and Technology at Growmark, Inc., a leading U.S. grower cooperative. “This technology, along with the FAA approvals to operate it without humans on the ground, is key to making drones a widespread reality in our industry. This is a game changer.”
It’s also a big moment for enterprise drone firms, which are preparing for a booming commercial drone market.
“With this set of approvals, American Robotics can begin safely operating our automated Scout platform for the benefit of the energy, infrastructure, agriculture, and security market verticals, helping unlock the projected $100 billion commercial drone market,” says Mozer. More

Grocery shopping has fundamentally, likely irrevocably, changed during the pandemic as more consumers have opted for online grocery shopping out of convenience or necessity. But what about people who rely on food stamps?
According to a recent Pew survey, a full quarter of adults have had trouble paying bills during the economic melee attributable to the pandemic. As of July 2020, over 40 million Americans were on food stamps, officially known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
Food stamps exist to help low income individuals, including those enduring a temporary hardship, bridge a crucial financial gap to access food. But as grocery shopping has migrated online at an unprecedented rate, many smaller merchants have struggled to find ways to accept digital payment using food stamps. In California, where I live, only five retailers (Albertsons, Amazon, Safeway, Vons, and Walmart) accept food stamps online. 
That’s left a lot of consumers without a flexible grocery shopping option at a time when in-person school closures and other pressures have left many with less time than ever for shopping. Add to that the burden of standing in line at many grocery stores, which has become a persistent reality in Los Angeles and other major urban centers. Sensing a possible play for market share, a company called Stor.ai, which offers end-to-end digital commerce solutions for grocers of all sizes, has leapt into the fray with a new capability focused on food stamps.
“Technology which enables SNAP participants to carry out their regular shopping online is a win-win scenario for grocers and low-income families alike,” said Eli Yeheskel, Director of U.S. Operations of Stor.ai. “Millions of food-stamps customers will now be able to shop online and pay for groceries using their food-stamps account. Meanwhile, grocers will be able to significantly expand their reach – a real game-changer for smaller community stores.”
Most SNAP payments today are made through EBT (electronic benefit transfer) payment cards. Stor.ai now enables grocers to accept split payments involving multiple payment methods.
“I am proud that Stor.ai is at the forefront of another paradigm shift as we work towards accelerating digital transformation within the grocery industry as a whole,” said Orlee Tal, CEO of Stor.ai. “Retailers must embrace technology and digitization in order to maintain and expand their client bases, especially given the growing popularity of online grocery shopping. At Stor.ai, we prioritize our customers to fully understand their needs, and we identified clear demand for tools which enable grocers to cater for recipients of food stamps.”

Stor.ai’s digital commerce option is part of a rapid-moving trend toward digital commerce, which is now becoming a norm even for small grocers and mom & pop retailers. The trend mirrors a growth in autonomous delivery services targeting small businesses.
The pandemic has accelerated adoption of various technologies aimed at the grocery delivery paradigm. In 2020 alone, Stor.ai saw 250% year over year growth.

Coronavirus More

Of the many technologies that have helped drive the robotics sector in the last few years, there’s a good case to be made that machine vision has had one of the greatest impacts. It’s also almost certainly true that new imaging technologies, and in particular 3D cameras, are on the cusp of unlocking heretofore unseen capabilities in robots.
3D cameras aren’t a monolithic technology, but rather describe sensors incorporating a variety of sensing strategies. That fact is made clear in a host of new 3D sensing offerings from a company called Orbbec, a leading global 3D camera provider that recently launched four new products that typify how the technology class will soon extend robotics capabilities to a wide range of environment requirements, such as temperature and lighting conditions from sunlight to total darkness.
“Innovations in 3D imaging, combined with broader advances like 5G, artificial intelligence and ultra-fast processors, are transforming the application landscape for designers and engineers,” says David Chen, Co-Founder and CEO at Orbbec. 
One of these sensors utilizes time-of-flight technology, which utilizes an artificial light signal to resolve distance between the sensor and the subject for each point of the image, thus sensing in three dimensions with extreme accuracy. The cameras offer a high-resolution and can quickly capture the details of moving objects—even those with smooth and reflective surfaces, which are notoriously troublesome for robots. 
“Our new camera with time-of-flight technology is a great example,” says Chen. “Its high resolution and tracking capabilities make it perfect for all kinds of products including fall detection, security, even at-home yoga and exercise products.”
It’s easy to see how these capabilities will be critical as automation escapes the structured environments of factories and warehouses and begins to enter the unstructured world. Orbbec’s time-of-flight sensor isn’t easily affected by ambient lighting conditions, another crucial characteristic for robots interacting with an unpredictable world. The camera has a depth-of-field range from 0.2 to 5 meters along with multi-camera synchronization support and the ability to be used in complete darkness.
Orrbec also recently unveiled an industrial-level 3D camera with ultra-high depth resolution and real-time 3D reconstruction. Developed in partnership with Purdue University, the camera will be available in 2021 as a white-label OEM product for laboratory and factory applications, among others.

“Our new products for 2021 showcase our ability to design for more scenarios, more platforms, and a broader range of environmental conditions,” said Chen. “We’ve expanded our lighting options beyond traditional structured light, along with much higher depth resolution. These additions will be immensely helpful to designers and developers in a wide range of industries.”
In addition to robotics, cameras like these support technology advances across a wide variety of sectors, including fitness. One of Orbbec’s parters is FITTAR, maker of a smart mirror product. 
“By combining Orbbec’s innovative technology with our smart fitness platform, we are able to bring a new experience to the end user. We are very motivated to keep working closely together with Orbbec, introducing more innovative products to the market,” said Mark Voermans, Head of Product at FITTAR.
If a mirror that sees you with unfailing accuracy sounds scary, just wait until you have a robotic home companion with an AI sense of humor. More

Clean is king during the pandemic, and that germ-conscious mentality, along with the prevalence of masks and hand sanitizer, likely won’t go away once vaccines are distributed en masse. For robotics developers, promoting employee and customer confidence in the workplace through new health and safety tools is a prominent business priority for 2021. 
The clearest example is the surge in disinfecting robots, which were a niche product relegated primarily to the healthcare market prior to last year. Now businesses of all stripes, from offices to shipping warehouses and grocery stores, are investing in disinfecting technology as a crucial prong of workplace safety.
Disinfecting robots come in various stripes, including floor mopping robots like those supported by automation firm Brain Corp. UV light has proven a favorite disinfecting tool among developers, which isn’t surprising given how adaptable the technology is to existing automation platforms. Autonomous mobile robots, which began to proliferate in the enterprise in the last decade in applications like materials handling and warehouse pick-and-place operations, can be easily adapted for UV disinfecting technologies that require little more than proximity to target surfaces to work effectively. 
That means existing mobile robotics technology portfolios can be leveraged into new disinfecting products without ground-up redesigns.
LG, a player in mobile robotics, unveiled a disinfecting robot in late 2020. Fetch Robotics, a leader in autonomous mobile robots, was quick to market, bringing a model out last summer.
Ava Robotics, which spun out of iRobot, is following this trajectory by building on automation technology first developed for its self-docking telepresence robots. The company has rolled out a new disinfection robot that can treat 9,000 square feet per hour and operates fully autonomously.
Last summer Ava partnered with MIT CSAIL to develop a disinfection robot to help protect patrons of a Boston-area food bank. The new robot is a commercialized product for use in a variety of professional settings.

“We initially partnered with Ava when they spun out of iRobot with telepresence robots. And now, with new safety expectations, we’re excited to pilot the UV robot in our Boston Worklife space, learning how it might help provide greater peace of mind for our customers and for our employees as they look to return to a safe work environment,” says Gale Moutrey, VP/Brand Innovation and Global Communications at Steelcase.
The robots have also been piloted at Boston-based Steelcase, as well as organizations like Boston City Hall. Ava’s UV robots are expected to become widely available and ship in early Q2, 2021, an indication of just how quickly the company was able to spring through hardware development. 
“With this timely expansion of our technology, we are bringing an intelligent UV disinfection robot with autonomous mobility to a market in great need,” said Youssef Saleh, co-founder and CEO of Ava Robotics. “Businesses must make employees, customers – and really anyone coming into their place of work – feel confident that all that can be done to keep them safe and healthy is being done.”
The technology category is still new and sales numbers are hard to come by, but judging by the flurry of development the robotics firms creating disinfecting robots are sensing a window of real opportunity. That may well mean that raising your coffee to a new robotic coworker is yet another adjustment awaiting you in the pandemic era. More

Advertising as a sector is notorious for major paradigm shifts. That’s because the shell game of grabbing consumers’ attention never stops, and as programmatic advertising gave way to influencers gave way to branded content gave way to … and on and on, so the game will always roll ahead as savvy marketers break new terrain and legions follow behind in a desperate bid for ears and eyes.
Not surprising, then, that the winds are shifting yet again, and this time the leading edge of the industry is turning its attention to AI. I caught up with Sheri Bachstein, Global Head of Watson Advertising and The Weather Company, to discuss the transformative impact AI will have on the advertising game, as well as what we can expect in terms of adoption in traditional advertising and untested ecosystems like AR/VR.
Me: What role will AI play in marketing in the years ahead? Where are we seeing AI already playing a successful role? Can you give some concrete examples?
Sheri: We’re currently experiencing a significant period of transformation throughout the marketing and advertising industry with the deprecation of the cookie and third-party trackers. While this shift will cause a fair bit of disruption throughout our ecosystem, we believe there’s an opportunity for AI to shape the industry with the same impact that programmatic had years ago.
Tapping into AI’s ability to offer predictive analysis on consumer behavior, while simultaneously leveraging data responsibly, we feel it’s the right solution going forward. AI has transformed industries like finance, insurance and healthcare just to name a few.  And we are already seeing success in advertising on our publisher platform, The Weather Channel.

Me: What has been the pace of adoption in marketing? If there’s any resistance to adoption, what do you think are the reasons for that?
Sheri: As with any new technology, the pace of adoption is tied to the education and experimentation of the technology itself. While there hasn’t been a true resistance to AI, only about 25% of global companies understand the true value of AI, and today it isn’t widely used across the digital advertising ecosystem.

Adoption will take time for some, while others will see the benefits immediately. We need to ensure that AI is no longer perceived as a buzzword, but rather a tangible solution that can deliver real outcomes in a privacy forward way. Pushing this narrative will organically allow for us to explain the benefits of AI and explain why this technology will be a force for good.
Me: Programmatic advertising changed the whole playbook for marketers. When might AI have a similar degree of impact? Why will it be a game changer?
When programmatic came on the scene 10 years ago, it took a while for the industry to truly adopt it. We believe AI will be adopted faster. In fact, don’t be surprised if within the next year AI becomes the transformational technology that not only provides a solution for a post cookie ecosystem, but also becomes the foundational technology because it’s open and transparent.  The ad industry doesn’t need a variety of point solutions, it needs to evolve and leverage AI as new category of advertising.
Sheri: What technological advances or breakthroughs can we expect in the years ahead that will help AI transform marketing?
One technology I’m especially interested in keeping an eye on is augmented reality (AR), especially in ecommerce.  Given the current climate, the ability to actually take a piece of clothing, jewelry, makeup, etc. and put it on in virtually, in some regard, is extremely valuable. It doesn’t fully replace the experience of trying it on in the store, but it will enhance the online buying experience and it will be interactive and engaging… maybe even addictive and certainly social. Expect to see advertisers (as well as brands) look to tap into this technology more heavily to connect to consumers and accelerate e-commerce sales. More

It would be difficult to overestimate the impact COVID-19 appears to be having on the automation sector. No where will the change be more apparent than in healthcare, where a major transition to automation has long been in the offing.
What would have been a slower easing in has, in light of overstressed capacity in some areas of healthcare (and an eerie diminishment of demand in others), as well as a complete reorientation of consumer expectations in the pandemic era, set the stage for a jarring transformation.

Health & Wellness

Own your well-being
Healthline cuts through the confusion with straightforward, expert-reviewed, person-first experiences — all designed to help you make the best decisions.
Read More

Robotics Tomorrow, an industry trade publication, picked up on the trend early: 

Major hospitals have deployed specialized robot nurses with remote patient monitoring tech so that doctors can keep an eye on people from afar. Other hospitals, along with grocery stores, restaurants and major retailers, have adopted robot cleaners that use UV-based tools to destroy bacteria and viruses. 

Add to that the massive adoption of telemedicine as an avoidance strategy to mitigate infection and the stage is now set for a new paradigm of healthcare in which robots and remote healing via in-home robotic devices and data trackers, along with in-hospital telemedicine and delivery robots, reorient longstanding protocols to minimize person-to-person contact.
“The entire healthcare system has been under an enormous amount of stress this year,” Dr. Eric Dusseux tells me, “and for the year ahead we’re already seeing the interest and conversations from healthcare providers around realigning on their ambition, goals, and strategies to improve functionalities within their facilities and quality of care for better patient outcomes across all practices. Technology and new solutions will play a huge part in reaching these goals for the future.”
Dr. Dusseux heads BIONIK Labs, a company focusing on rehabilitation with data-driven, robotic assisted therapy systems that transform neurorecovery. He points out that from a technological perspective the timing has been ripe for a rethink about how to collect and use data for more effective healing, much of it centered around automation.

“Patient data, A.I., and machine learning are bridging the communication gap between hospital executives, physicians, outpatient facilities, and patients themselves, allowing medtech companies like BIONIK to share insights with hospital C-suites and the therapists, using real world evidence to allow them to make informed decisions. Telemedicine, benefitting of improved reimbursement by payers during the pandemic, and connected robotic devices have emerged as fundamental tools in how we access and review patient data, including remote patient monitoring through wearable devices, implanted medical devices, and home therapy robotic devices, constituting new ways to engage and empower patients.”

The interesting thing is that the forced reevaluation of systems and protocols during COVID is bleeding over into a general reevaluation of automation in healthcare for the longterm. As I wrote in October, robots can help health systems increase efficiency and enhance care while protecting patients and staff by eliminating contact points between them. Hospitals are littered with opportunities for smart automation, from front desks to operating rooms to outpatient settings. Companies like BIONIK, which focuses on rehabilitation, and others like Diligent Robotics, which makes a helper robot called Moxi that can pick up the slack for hospital staff, are keenly aware of the opportunities.
“The processing and analysis of data is one of the areas where hospitals and healthcare facilities can most effectively automate,” says Dr. Dusseux. “Traditionally, healthcare staff had to sit and record patient results on a clipboard or computer; but now, healthcare networks can connect their patient-facing medical devices to the cloud so that patient progress can be automatically and instantly tracked. As this data is automatically generated and recorded, it is less biased than data collected by human doctors, making it more appropriate for decision making and recommendations. The data can then be used in a facility or network to make informed decisions in real time, spot room for progress and inefficiencies, and compare facilities versus the ones which have best practices, enabling managers and executives to manage, train and adapt their resources accordingly.”
During an earlier exchange with Dr. Dusseux, he identified the reluctance of hospital CFOs and administrators to invest in emerging technology as one of the single greatest obstacles to the use of robotics and automation in healthcare networks. COVID has helped to chip away at that resistance, however. As a result, the new face of patient care may not be entirely human. More